SIA to leverage Vistara's international growth

Singapore Airlines says that Vistara's pending addition of international routes will fit well in the group's route portfolio.

At its latest results briefing, SIA chief executive Goh Choon Phong says that "because of the traffic between India and Singapore, we know that there will be synergies".

This, Goh adds, is "for the obvious reason that they can actually tap into the traffic that we can feed from Southeast Asia and Southwest Pacific".

Vistara has previously said that it will operate its first international service in the second half of the year, after already having achieved the minimum fleet size of 20 as per Indian aviation regulations to apply for international routes.

Vistara chief executive Leslie Thng revealed that this will be a medium-haul route "of between five to nine hours". Pointing to this, he suggests the carrier will acquire widebodies, since such services "would require a different aircraft type".